Almost every beginner starts by asking "which fund should I buy?" That is the wrong first question, and answering it first is what costs people money.
The order that works is: understand where the cash comes from, learn to read a payment record, then look at tickers. It takes about twenty minutes of reading, and it is the difference between buying a fund and being sold one. This site has no affiliate links, no broker partnerships and no fund to push — the only thing for sale is a $14 spreadsheet that has nothing to do with any of the pages below.
- What are dividends? — where the cash comes from, in plain English.
- What is an ETF? — what you own, how the payments reach you, and what it quietly costs.
- ETF vs mutual fund — the differences that actually matter in practice.
- Do index funds pay dividends? — yes, and here is how much, for the famous ones.
A yield is just the payment divided by the share price, which means it rises when the price falls. A very high yield isn't the same as more money — it can be a sign of a very sick fund. Of the 201 funds tracked here, the range runs from under 1% to over 70%, and the difference between a healthy payer and a shrinking one is visible only in the payment record. These pages teach you to read it:
- How to choose dividend stocks — a beginner's framework, five metrics.
- Dividend math and formulas — how yield is calculated, with worked examples.
- Payout ratio explained — how to spot a payment a company cannot afford.
- Return of capital and NAV erosion — how a fund can pay you with your own money.
- How are dividends taxed? — qualified vs ordinary, explained without jargon.
- Dividends in a 401(k) or IRA — what changes inside a retirement account.
- How much to live off dividends — the honest arithmetic, not the fantasy.
- How to invest in ETFs — the mechanics, step by step.
- Broker options — the plain-English list, with nobody paying us to recommend one.
- Best dividend stocks for beginners — names the payment records picked, not us.
- The ex-dividend date — the cutoff that decides whether a payment reaches you or the person who bought your shares. Buy one day late and you miss it, so this is the one piece of timing worth understanding before your first purchase.
Once you know what you are looking at, these answer the practical questions. No signup, no email required:
- Income calculator — what any amount in any fund would pay you.
- Goal calculator — it works both ways: what $10,000 pays, or what you need invested for $1,000 a month.
- Payment histories — every payment each of the 201 funds has ever made, charted. 81 pay monthly, 64 weekly, 45 quarterly.
- Compare any two funds — payments and price erosion side by side.
- Paycheck calendar — when your money would actually arrive.
Tell you what to buy. Nothing here knows your situation, your taxes or your timeline, and any site that claims otherwise is guessing or selling. What this site does instead is show the public payment record of every fund it tracks, computed the same way every time, including the funds whose records look bad. When a number here looks surprising, the page shows you how it was worked out so you can check it — that is the whole point.